Malay Muslims Attending Gay Pride Parade
Today, prosecuting gays and hampering down on transsexuals seems to be the ultimate chest beating to announce your Muslimhood. But what of the unity that Prophet Muhammad spoke of?
Shamil Norshidi
The walk there itself is intimidating. In your mind you’re thinking: “Would people think I’m gay if I attend? Does this shirt look too pink? Why are those people staring at me?” With every step towards New York’s illustrious 5th Avenue, your paranoia grows inflamed as you hear the cheers churn louder and louder.
Standing there in the vast crowd, watching the LGBT community march downtown, your mind streams into thinking of the struggles they fought to stand where they are. Amidst a generation that today judges each other more adversely and publicly, it must surely take more than oneself to defy what many argue is the “natural orientation of sex.”
It’s been a historic week here in the US. With the Supreme Court ruling that same sex marriage is constitutional across all of America, the Pride Parade on Sunday was a culminating event to the sense of a changing time.
Many in Malaysia point to the historic ruling and make evidence to the dangers of abiding to a few, to the dangers of a majority losing principle, the dangers of a majority being too compromising to the demands of the minorities. Magically, the right of two men in the US marrying each other is now the rallying cry for Malay Muslims to stand strong against any who try to interfere with “our” core values.
As Muslims who actively try engaging with our surrounding community, there is perhaps a sense of loss in what to do, what to think of the Supreme Court ruling. On one side, the Quran clearly identifies the distaste towards having a sexual relationship with one similar to your sex. In Surah Al-A’raf, Prophet Lut asks his people: “How could you commit these indecent acts such as none in all the worlds has committed before you? Indeed you lust after men instead of women. Truly you are a people transgressing beyond bounds,” (7: 80-81).
Yet at the same time, looking at how we in Malaysia demonize and prosecute the LGBT community, the sense of compassion and care that Islam prioritizes beyond all else is seemingly at some loss. Politicians on both sides of the table have called gays a “disease to our community” whilst certain states are considering stoning or death as punishments for homosexual activity. In as much as sexual relationships between the same sexes is against Islam, surely Prophet Muhammad, who even showed sympathy to the Qurayza Jews in Medina—after they continuously betrayed him in battle—would disagree to our unfiltered boiling hate towards the LGBTs in Malaysia.
In 2013, a state sponsored play named “Asmara Songsang” (Abnormal Desire) toured around Kuala Lumpur featuring gays and lesbians as “predatory deviants who recruit straight teenagers into their club and force them to forsake religion.” According to the play, the lifestyle of gays included periodic loud parties, repetitive casual sex, drug abuse and criminal activity. Here, the sense of fear mongering and baseless generalization cannot be more clear—taken differently, it’d be like a play depicting Malays as the lazy uneducated and we should all be convinced of that. We call ourselves a tolerant Muslim nation, yet is it truly the way of Prophet Muhammad SAW to make stories of the LGBT community without even taking the step to listen to their beliefs?
I have numerous friends that are openly gay, yet I wouldn’t for a second try forcing them or pursue jailing them for what they choose to be. It is perhaps the higher test that Allah SWT has given us to engage with ones we don’t align with, with those that share different beliefs from our own and to refrain from barbaric instincts of stoning or even firing water canons at them (as Turkey did recently).
Is it right to state Islam’s opposition to same sex marriage? Yes. But demonizing the LGBT community in Malaysia is perhaps the ultimate symbol to how weak our personal identification to Islam truly is, an inability to explore the other opinion, the other perspective, whilst our own core values are still intact.
Many in Malaysia look at the Muslims in America and criticize them for being too liberal, “Muslim liberals” is the term. As if the Sunni and Shiite narrative is not enough to segregate the Muslim community, we now have yet another dividing fence amongst the Muslims, further hurting our ability to accept, talk and learn from one another.
Today, prosecuting gays and hampering down on transsexuals seems to be the ultimate chest beating to announce your Muslimhood. But what of the unity that Prophet Muhammad spoke of? A unity whereon we had the courage to listen to everyone in the community, the courage to invite them within your compassion and care. It is easy for us to throw rocks or to call gays and lesbians a “disease,” it is much harder and it takes a stronger character to actually engage with our fellow LGBT Malaysians.
“memang bangsa kita masih muda dan masih lemah, harapanku hanyalah kita sama bangsa, bersama padulah hendaknya,” – P Ramlee.
